The Coterie of OEMs

Jun 11, 1998

Companies Take New Corners in NC Battle

By John MakulowichSenior Writer

Market forces are breaking apart the weak bonds that held together partners of convenience working on network computers, as a canny crop of smaller companies plays all sides in the rivalry to win a dominant share of the market.

Take IBM, which is distancing itself from Sun and Oracle, taking Microsoft head-on and cutting deals with Intel.

Started in 1988, NCD has a line of products that include the so-called Explora family of thin clients, WinCenter multi-user Windows NT server software and PC-Xware software for PC access to Unix and multi-user Windows NT. The firm claims that more than 500,000 NCD thin clients are installed with over 2 billion hours of operation.

In fact, NCD was identified as the top manufacturer of thin clients by both IntelliQuest Information Group Inc.'s subsidiary, Zona Research, Redwood City, Calif., and International Data Corp.

According to Zona, NCD was the market leader in 1997, shipping more than 40 percent of the thin clients sold when sales of the IBM Network Station are included. IDC research also noted that when NCD and IBM unit shipments are combined, NCD shipped more than 140,000 units in 1997, more than a third of all thin clients sold. For comparison, Tektronix, a leading competitor, shipped just over 37,000 units, or about 11 percent.

Hariton defines the thin client as a desktop device that displays applications processed on servers located elsewhere on a network. The client types range along the spectrum from thinner to fatter and go from the Windows-based Terminal through the X Terminal, the Network Terminal and Java Network Computer, all the way to the PC or Unix box with thin client software.

Given her technology vision, armed with a thin client, a user can access any applications at once, whether served from Windows NT, Unix, a mainframe or mini and include legacy systems, ASCII, video and Java and Web browsers.

"NCD plays across the range of the market. For simplicity, we divide the market into two key areas. One is Java-based products that are optimized for Java performance. That includes IBM, Sun and Oracle. The other is focused on access to applications, what we see as the access or terminal part of the market. That includes Microsoft, Citrix and X Terminal, where the presentation layer is separate from the application layer. The important news for us is that Microsoft is now a player," Hariton explained.

According to Hariton, almost all customers fall in the access model since there are not a lot of production Java applications available. Part of the reason is that to run Java locally is fairly CPU intensive.

Asked about her competitive advantage, Hariton said NCD is ahead of the market on technology. "We are quite a ways ahead on the Microsoft platform. As a company, we know how to take immature technology and move it. That world we understand well," Hariton said. "We also benefit from partnerships that are strong. We just signed a three-year joint development agreement with Intel for their Lean Client initiative, are working with Microsoft on their CE operating system and delivering product with the Java OS."

One of Hariton's competitors that is also making thin clients for a number of competing companies is Tektronix, among whose strengths is multimedia.

The company produces a Windows-based Terminal and an NC with Java. In fact, Tektronix was one of the first vendors to introduce products into both the NC and Windows-based terminal camps. According to marketing literature, the company has been in the thin client business for the last 25 years and has features found only on their systems, such as full-motion video-on-demand and proven remote administration tools.

David Pinckard, vice president and general manager of Network Displays, sees the government market as strong. "After thin clients are deployed, they should have a life span of five to seven years. That's part and parcel of the whole total cost of ownership issue," Pinckard said.

One advantage he sees in NCs is the ability to monitor activity for specific transactions and to have all the power on the server when users are performing queries. For example, in banking, he believes there are a lot of transaction costs that users do not process accurately. NCs are one way of correcting this through careful monitoring.

In this episode of the Project 38 podcast, we talk to Hitachi Vantara Federal leader David Turner about a project at Disney World that can teach the federal government how powerful the Internet of Things and data can be.
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